“Dad, isn’t this crazy?” Seven-year-old Lukas marveled. He and his father, Tom, had just finished reading A Strange Gift (Enchanted Necklace, Number 1) together. “In the book,” Lukas continued with blinking eyes, “Eli’s dad is the only one who isn’t crazy. But when everyone else in his kingdom goes crazy, everyone thinks Eli’s dad is crazy. Don’t they! is it crazy ?! ” “
“Yes.” Tom smiled widely, very happy to see his son grasp the moral lessons of the book so quickly. “It’s crazy, but it’s also true. Just remember, when all the ‘cool’ kids at school tell you that you’re crazy for not doing the same bad things as them, you don’t have to listen to them. They might be crazy and you are sane, and that is why they accuse you of being crazy. “
“You’re right dad!” Lukas exclaimed. “I don’t have to be crazy like them!”
When Tom told me about this conversion later, I was ecstatic. “This is fantastic, Tom!” I told him on the phone. “Your child knows how to resist peer pressure.”
“Yes,” Tom agreed. “But I still need to remind him of this lesson whenever peer pressure seems too strong to resist.”
We were all children once. We all remember how much peer pressure we had to endure as we grew up. We can remember the fear of being rejected by the “cold” crowd when we were young. Unfortunately, as we age, peer pressure does not diminish. In any case, it intensifies and takes on new forms.
Peer pressure emanates from all corners of our world: billboards, newsstands, television, the Internet, radio. It is everywhere. We are bombarded with high pressure messages almost every minute of the day: buy this lotion and you will look as beautiful as Cindy Crawford; wear these sneakers and you will play basketball like Michael Jordan; use the latest iPad and you will be as successful as Steve Jobs.
Some of us can resist peer pressure to keep up with the Joneses. But just like the wolves in Enchanted Collar going berserk, many of us in real life succumb to the lure of advertising and marketing. We shop till we drop, ignoring the silent protests of our depleted wallets / purses / bank accounts.
In the fantasy world of Enchanted Collar, Eli embarks on an epic journey in search of a cure for social pressure to overspend. In the real world, we go on the journey of teaching our children to resist peer pressure. If we don’t, not only will our bank accounts suffer, our children will suffer from unhappiness, depression, and poor performance in school. Worse, children who give in to peer pressure often end up engaging in harmful behaviors, such as using drugs and having sex at a young age.
So how should we teach our children to resist negative peer pressure? Try the following three easy steps:
1. We set a good example for ourselves. Children learn more from what we do than from what we say. If we’re always busy trying to keep up with the Joneses, we can’t expect our kids to say no to pressure from their own peers. If we continue to buy the latest designer brands simply because fashion magazines tell us, we cannot teach our children to resist peer pressure to spend beyond their means. We have to defend ourselves before we can instill the will and power in our children to resist peer pressure.
2. Help the children select the appropriate models in the media. Engage in meaningful discussions with your children after reading a book, watching television, watching a movie, or hovering over a billboard together. Talk about what they like or don’t like about characters in stories, shows, or advertisements. Explore with them how they want to be when they are older and why. To help you get started, the Enchanted Collar books come with a comprehensive set of worksheets to help parents guide their children through the moral lessons included in the stories.
3. Provide unwavering emotional support to your children. They must have an internal moral compass to stay away from treacherous ways. They need a solid foundation, an emotional “rock,” someone confident enough to withstand peer pressure. Be that stone for your children. On your car / subway / train trips together, ask them about the events of their day at school. Talk about what they did, how they felt, and how they could have reacted differently if necessary. Listen to them with an open heart. See things through their eyes. Walk a mile in their shoes. Above all, don’t forget to remind them that when the crowd goes wild, they don’t have to give in to peer pressure and go crazy, too.
